


I prefer you

by evol_love



Category: American Vandal (TV)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Investigations, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Multi, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 20:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evol_love/pseuds/evol_love
Summary: When Gabi's social media presence suddenly seems to suggest she and Sara are...close, Sam is confused, and Peter turns to the power of Investigative Journalism.A gift for the Netflix Originals Exchange!





	I prefer you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstlovelatespring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstlovelatespring/gifts).

> This is a gift for @firstlovelatespring! I'm so so hoping you enjoy this, your prompt was so exciting to receive! You showed interest in both Sam/Peter and Gabi/Sara, and I was eager to find a way to deliver both, along with some good old fashioned fake dating (possibly even SECRET fake dating?), get together fic, friends-to-lovers, Sara and Gabi bonding after Brandon, and just a hint of detective work ;)
> 
> Title from "Low" by Trace
> 
> Find me on tumblr @lesbiantoziers!

Peter is frowning at his phone when Sam meets him at the movie theater. This is not especially weird—Sam’s come into the room to find Peter deep in a thinkpiece or forum discussion more times than he can count—but it _is _weird that Peter jumps and drops his phone when he sees Sam approaching. 

“Oh! Hi!” he says, voice completely unnatural. Sam snorts at him, nods to his phone, facedown on the floor. 

“Dude, what? Were you looking at porn or something?”

Peter picks his phone up, checking the screen for cracks before tucking it away in his pocket.

“No, of course I- why would I...whatever.” Sam raises an eyebrow as Peter rambles. A truly flustered Peter is a rare gift. 

“All right then, keep your secrets,” Sam quips, unlocking his own phone to refresh his Instagram feed. Peter makes a noise like he wants to say something, but bails quickly. He looks away, and Sam doubles down on scrolling through Instagram so he won’t focus on the slope of Peter’s nose in profile instead. God. He’s so fucked. It’s fine. 

His feed is pretty boring. Randall went on a Dairy Queen run, Christa is dabbling in some very crisp graphic design for her birthday fundraising project, Gabi is—

Gabi is laughing, happy and relaxed, with Sara Pearson. They’ve both got glittery eyeshadow swiped over their lids, presumably posing together at that house party Eric Waters threw last night. And it would be totally bizarre anyway, absolutely out of the ordinary to see the two of them together and enjoying each other’s company, but the way they’re looking at each other...they’re keeping each other in sight, holding eye contact out of the corners of their eyes even though they’re both cracking up. Like they _want _to keep looking. It’s so _familiar._ Like they’re too fond of each other even to blink. 

Sam scrolls down to read Gabi’s caption: “_Love this girl more than I can say ❤︎❤︎❤︎”_

He glances up at Peter. He’s already looking at Sam, nervous. 

“Did you see this?” Sam asks, handing his phone to Peter. Peter barely glances at the screen before wincing. 

“Did you know about it?” Peter asks him quietly. Sam shakes his head, still trying to process. 

“I had no idea they were even speaking to each other. I guess I kind of assumed they’d hate each other after the whole cheating thing, which now that I’m saying it out loud seems like the type of thing Gabi would yell at me for.” 

Peter is silent, doesn’t even offer an acknowledgment that he _heard _Sam’s feeble attempt at a joke. Sam looks at the post again. Gabi looks happy. 

“I mean, good for her, she’s getting back on her feet after a shitty dude screwed her over, who am I to judge.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Peter asks. He sounds. Tense. Sam frowns. 

“Not really? What’s there to talk about.” Peter looks at him another moment, and Sam cannot make out his expression, before handing Sam his ticket. “Oh, thanks. I could’ve gotten my own, dude.”

Peter shrugs, looks a little pleased with himself. “It wasn’t a big deal. You get them next time.”

“Okay,” Sam agrees with a smile, trying (and failing) to keep the thought ‘is this a date?’ out of his head entirely. It’s not. It’s _not._ Peter doesn’t want to date him, and if that had changed, he would have _told _Sam. Not a date. Just two bros, two movie tickets, and a large popcorn like always. They’ve been doing this for years. 

(And Sam has been into Peter for years, too, but that’s not important.)

*****

The movie is...okay. Sam thinks it’s fine, but Peter has a lot of Opinions, all of which he’s sharing with Sam as they walk out, tossing their popcorn bucket into the overflowing theater trashcan as he does. Sam makes faces at him while he rants about lighting like it doesn’t fill his heart to bursting when Peter gets all Serious And Passionate. 

“Oh,” Peter says abruptly in the middle of a rant about overusing Dutch angles. “Actually let’s go to the bathroom before we go?”

“What?” Sam asks because What, but then he sees what Peter had clearly been trying to distract him from. “Gabi!”

Gabi is at the concessions counter, Sara Pearson clinging to her arm and resting her chin against her shoulder. 

“Sam! Hey!” Gabi says happily, untangling herself from Sara to give him a quick hug. “What are you seeing?”

“Pete and I just got out, actually,” he says, gesturing to Peter a few steps behind them. “Hi Sara,” he adds, trying to be nice since she and Gabi are apparently all over each other now. They hadn’t exactly been in a great place the last time they’d interacted. Or, okay, he actually hasn’t talked to Sara in awhile, but she hadn’t been thrilled with Peter, so he’s probably lumped in with all of that. They’re pretty much a package deal. 

“Hey Sam,” she says, and she doesn’t smile, but she at least doesn’t sound like she wants to kill him. Maybe being cuddly with Gabi had warmed her up on him, too. Sara turns to look at Gabi. “I’m gonna go in, okay babe?” she says, squeezing Gabi’s shoulder before turning on her heel and heading in the direction of theaters 1-8. Sam watches her go.

“Sooooo what’s _that _about?” he asks pointedly. Gabi rolls her eyes. 

“It’s complicated.” 

“Gabi.”

“I need to catch my movie. We’ll talk later, okay?” She gathers up her large popcorn and Icee (two straws). 

“Promise?” Sam asks. 

“I promise,” Gabi says, voice gentler. She smiles at him before following after Sara. 

“Are you okay?” Peter asks as soon as she leaves, coming back up to stand at Sam’s side. Sam snorts a laugh. 

“Uh, yeah? Sara being pissed at us isn’t really news, it’s fine.”

“No, I meant.” Peter glances around, moves in closer. “About Gabi and Sara. Dating.”

Sam laughs full out at that. “_What_? Oh my god, Peter, they’re not dating. Gabi’s really affectionate with all her friends. She’s like that with _me_.” He doesn’t add that Gabi had been so frantic to remember her straight ally training when he’d told her he was gay that she’d called him her son by accident and made Sam laugh so hard he cried. Leave some mystery and all that. 

The way Peter’s jaw shifts means he’s chewing on the inside of his cheek, which is never a good sign. Sam sighs. 

“Okay, _what_ is your deal? You were all weird earlier with your phone, and now you’re upset about Sara and Gabi? Is this where you tell me you’ve actually been pretending to be gay this whole time for the artsy clout and you’re actually madly in love with Sara Pearson?”

“No, obviously—Sam, what about Gabi?”

“What about her?” he asks, looking over the Coming Soon posters in the lobby rather than having to actually look at Peter while being vulnerable or whatever. "She looks really happy and is going out and doing fun stuff with other people. Whatever Sara means to her, however that happened...she was really fucking upset about Brandon, okay? And her being happy now matters. Even if I have no idea what’s going on, I want that for her. Cool?” Sam looks back at Peter at last, and he isn’t prepared for how sad Peter looks. Sam blinks, tries to make sense of the look on Peter’s face. “Do you like. Have a problem with Gabi?” he asks, aware that they’re doing this in the lobby for the fucking movie theater they frequent every couple weeks, sometimes even more regularly when there’s a good streak of new releases or Oscars season is approaching. 

“Of course I don’t, I just...” Peter looks around at the people buying tickets and overpriced Junior Mints, seems to come to the same awareness as Sam. “I can’t do this here.”

_That _makes Sam’s heart leap into his throat. What the fuck is “this” that he can’t Do Here? 

“Okayyyy,” he says slowly, trying not to sound as stressed as he feels. “Can we leave, then?”

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. They walk out of the theater together. Sam glances back over his shoulder, not quite sure why when he knows Gabi’s already out of sight. 

*****

They wind up back at Peter’s house. Peter is nervous, which is never good. He’s all over the place, asking Sam twice in a row if he wants anything to drink while Sam watches him from Peter’s desk chair. 

“Peter.” Peter stills. “Why are you being so weird?” 

Sam doesn’t miss the way Peter frowns at his words, but he seems to shake it off. He looks Sam in the eyes and says, “I’ve been. Investigating.” 

Barking a laugh, Sam relaxes. Okay. This isn’t weird, this is Classic Peter. He knows this one. 

“What are you investigating this time Ken Burns?” 

“Gabi. And Sara.” He takes a deep breath, like he’s expecting Sam to freak out. Like he thinks he’s maybe earned it. “That’s what I was doing when you came up to me earlier, I was on Gabi’s Instagram trying to, I don’t know, find some sort of hidden message in her captions or something.” Peter’s eyes drop at last, he’s looking anywhere but at Sam. This feels _important _suddenly. Like Peter is saying something in another language and relying on Sam to translate it properly. Except, like, Sam doesn’t recognize the language and Peter won’t tell him what language it is so he can’t even put it into Google Translate or anything. Something like that. “I just, I was trying to figure it out before you had to see it. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

And _that _turns out to be Sam’s Rosetta fucking Stone. 

“Wait, sorry, are you _still _on this whole ‘crush on Gabi’ shit Peter? Seriously? I _told _you I don’t like her. We went over this.”

Peter looks uncomfortable. “I know that, but if _my _crush on my best friend was getting filmed for a docuseries I would probably deny it too.”

“Ashley Hanson,” Sam points out, because duh. Peter waves a hand dismissively, addressing Sam head on again at last. 

“Not the same thing, he isn’t...it doesn’t matter. If Gabi’s in a relationship, especially one she apparently didn’t tell you about, that impacts you.”

“It does?”

“Well, yeah. You’re best friends.”

Sam doesn’t know how to respond to that. “I mean, you’re my best friend too.” The smile Peter gives him in response to that is polite at best, pained at worst. 

“Right.”

*****

Peter is still being weird, but it’s mostly understandable now that Sam understands he’s back in private detective mode. He’s decoding Gabi’s Snapchat story and latest Instagram updates (which are coming in at increasingly quicker intervals) all the time, even when Sam tells him it really shouldn’t matter that much. Peter seems determined, and he seems determined that he’s _helping _Sam somehow, which, okay. And he knows he _could _just say‘Peter’s I’m so fucking gay dude, I have not ever liked Gabi, and I never will,’ but he’s apparently in a game of chicken with himself. 

Plus it’s kind of funny. 

Of course, the one investigative concept Peter hadn’t thought of was to just fucking ask Gabi what was going on. Sam’s always been the brains _and _the beauty on this time. Someone’s gotta do it. 

**To: Gabi**

So are we gonna talk about Sara 👀

**From: Gabi**

Fiiiiiiine. Come over?

Sam sends her back a thumbs up and hits the road. 

Gabi’s in her room trying very hard to seem nonchalant and chill. She practically pretends she didn’t realize Sam was there when he enters, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Oh, hey Sam!” she says, practiced. 

“Gabi. What are you doing?” 

Gabi’s rehearsed calm cracks almost instantly. That’s high school theater training for you. 

“I don’t know,” she groans, flopping over onto her bed. “Sam.” Her voice is muffled by the comforter. 

She’s barely said anything, they haven’t even mentioned her _name, _but Sam knows Gabi. She’s already given him everything. Game, set, match, Maldonado. 

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” She looks up at him, her pout only about 75% a joke. Her eyes are shiny. “It’s _so _stupid, it wasn’t supposed to end up like this.”

“Take me through it from the beginning.” And she does. She tells Sam about talking with Sara at a party not long after the first season of _Vandal _wrapped, the way they’d clicked so easily, how surprising it was. How she’d never been mad at Gabi for any of it (“She didn’t have any right to be! _You _should have been mad at _her_!” “Sam.”) and it had been so fucking _nice _to just talk to a girl who got exactly how she felt for a change. Sam feels a little guilty at that. 

“So we thought, well, best revenge, the girls you were juggling become best friends, right?” Gabi says, laughing, making a face at herself that makes Sam’s heart clench. God. She’d been dealing with this by herself for weeks. “So we decide to go over the top, all over social media. Who needs boys?”

“Oh my godddddddd,” Sam groans, laughing at her just a little. 

“And then we start thinking like, these posts are kind of coupley. And obviously like, I don’t know, lots of straight girls do that, do you remember when Lindsay and Hailey got Facebook married?” 

“My heterophobic supervillain origin story,” Sam agrees. “Fuck Hailey.”

“No, I _know_ that, that’s—Sam what do I do! Focus!”

“Sorry, sorry. Listening.”

Gabi takes a deep, shaky breath, pulling her long hair back in a ponytail and tying it up absentmindedly with the elastic she’d had on her wrist. 

“Anyway, we’re like ‘Oh, that’s even better!’ but we don’t want to push it _too _far, so we decided to just keep doing what we were doing, and if Brandon wants to think he got dumped by two hot girls who decided they liked each other better, then cool. We win.” She gives him a Look, pumps a fist in the air in sarcastic victory. “Wooo.”

“Yeah, it’s a good plan, I’ll give you that, but it looks like you’re taking the L on this one.” Sam pats her on the back. “So like. You’re bi? That’s cool.”

“Yeah. It’s. Developing.” Sam chuckles. 

“Cool,” he repeats. “You know you can talk to me about that stuff, right? I know I’m not, like, Mr. Feelings, but like. I get it.” Gabi looks up at him and gives him a watery smile. 

“I know you do. Thanks. I love you.”

“I love you too.” He thinks about it a moment, Gabi and Sara together. And honestly? He sees it. “For what it’s worth, I saw her snuggling you in that movie theater the other day, okay? Maybe try talking to her too.”

Gabi laughs a shocked, indignant, open-mouthed laugh, jaw dropping. “Oh, sorry, are _you _telling _me_ to have a conversation with the person I like? You? Sam Ecklund?”

“Okay, fuck off, I liked you better when you needed my gay wisdom.” She shoves him, and he shoves her back, and just like that, they’re Sam and Gabi again. Best friends forever, no weird strained conversations need apply. 

*****

Of course, Sam’s feeling decidedly less warm and fond of Gabi when she Snapchats him a selfie of herself kissing the corner of Sara’s mouth captioned “your move hoe” a week later. It’s not like they’d made any sort of “if, then” deal or anything, but Sam gets it. Sam challenged her to talk to Sara, she clearly rose to it, and now the ball is in Sam’s court. 

He wishes he could explain to her it’s not that easy. That Peter _still _sort of suspects Sam is nursing a secret crush. And like, he is, but not the one Peter thinks. 

Fuck it. 

**To Peter:**

Have had breakthrough in the Case. Your house?

*****

Sam stops to think about whether he’s actually going to do this about five separate times on his way to Peter’s. He almost turns around twice, and he resolves to only share the strictly-Gabi facts a few more times. But then he’s parking in Peter’s driveway and walking up Peter’s front steps and knocking on Peter’s door, and it suddenly feels so _real_.

He hopes Gabi will be pleased with him putting himself out there even if it means a broken heart. 

“Hey,” Peter greets him. “What’s the news.”

“Oh they’re _absolutely _dating,” Sam says with a smile. He pushes past Peter and heads into the kitchen. At this point in their friendship, he knows where the good snacks are. 

“Seriously?”

“Mmmhmm,” Sam says, peeling back the plastic on the package of Oreos and pulling out a couple cookies. 

“You’re _sure. _What’s your source?” He’s so fucking serious, always triple checking his leads, getting his facts straight, and god, Sam wants to kiss him more than anything in the world. 

“My source is Gabi’s my best friend and I asked her.”

“Oh.”

“I know. It’s an unsavory method, but one we have to stoop to sometimes.”

Peter nods, looking distant. 

“So...you’re okay? With Gabi dating, I mean, I know you don’t care about the. Gay thing.” 

Sam sets the Oreos aside. “About the gay thing,” he says. Son of a bitch. He’s really doing this, huh? “You know _I’m _a gay thing, right?”

Peter looks. Confused. 

“I should have just, I should have clarified this ages ago but it got to the point where it would have been weird to say something—or maybe that was just in my head, I don’t know, I was scared to tell you that I didn’t like girls because I thought. Like.” He laughs, nervous again suddenly after that burst of confidence. “I know you,” he says instead, switching tacts entirely. “I mean, look at you. You launched an investigation based on a hunch that the girl I liked was seeing someone new. If I helped point you too much, you might have figured out where to look.”

It’s amazing to physically _see _Peter solve a puzzle, even one with such high personal stakes for him. He watches Peter _get _it, a subtle change in his expression to one of understanding. He gives Sam a tiny, careful smile. 

“You were supposed to be the one with the breakthroughs,” Peter says. “I wasn’t investigating Gabi’s relationship because I wanted another case, or because I wanted gossip, or even just because you’re my friend.”

Sam thinks he might get it too. 

“For the record,” he says carefully. “Even though Gabi obviously didn’t break my heart. I don’t think you would either.”

“I wouldn’t,” Peter agrees quickly. Sam melts. 

“I know you wouldn’t,” he promises. “I wouldn’t either.”

Peter grins, reaches tentatively for Sam’s hand. Sam takes it, squeezes it once, pulls Peter in a little closer. 

“Peter Maldonado, Private Eye,” Sam teases. “It has a ring to it.”

“Shut up,” Peter laughs, embarrassed. 

“I’d never hire you, though. You missed so much right under your nose. Sloppy detective work.”

“Alright,” Peter says, not sounding nearly as grumpy as he probably wants to. “I don’t know, Sam, you make a good point, but.” He looks at their hands, fingers still interlaced. “I’m pretty sure I still won this round.”

“Oh my god you’re _sappy,_” Sam croons. Peter rolls his eyes and lets go of Sam’s hand. Sam grabs his hand back quickly. “No, stop, it’s amazing. I get to make fun of you forever and also date you.” 

Peter’s flustered again. This time, though, it’s for all the right reasons. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment to let me know what you thought :)
> 
> Find me on tumblr @lesbiantoziers


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